Ron Levett's memories of joining up and training in the Royal Armoured Corps during World War II.

Following Wireless School our squad started the Driving Course at the D&M School. The first two weeks were spent in the workshops and classrooms. We were taught the theory and practice of the internal combustion engine, together with the transmission system, including the gearbox and differential gears. We discovered that knowing how a vehicle works was of great assistance in learning how to drive.

We spent about a month on driving instruction. We learnt to drive a variety of small trucks, all fifteen hundred weight, including Morris Commercial, Bedford and Guy. I soon got to know all the byroads in the Bovington area.

The most memorable was a night drive back from Exeter. There was a fine misty rain. I was driving an old Morris, which had no windscreen, just a small piece of glass in front of each front seat. There was just a piece of canvas as a roof.

Since I wore glasses these were soon misted up. I therefore removed my glasses and drove without them. With the wartime-covered headlights, visibility was very poor.

When we arrived in the Dorchester area the Air Raid sirens sounded. Near an American air base an American sentry, who threatened to shoot out our lights if we did not switch them off, stopped us. He was probably a new arrival in a war zone and was quite worried about enemy action.

On another occasion, I was driving a 15 cwt down a steep hill in Lyme Regis when I met an American officer who was being driven in a Jeep. We met on a narrow bridge at the bottom of the hill. There was just room for us to pass, but the American officer rose to his feet ready to bail out in case we collided. We missed.

Ron Levett, 2001